aa Spoken Here Community Group
Fellowship Where you can share your thoughts, feelings, stories and get support to gain and continue sobriety.
Although threads typically evolve and change I can see Holy crap's point about us hijacking the AA meeting thread.
Yet, I wanted to answer Lee's last comment, as I feel these discussions are good.
Simple soultion, start a new thread.
Lee you mentioned that we do not exist to even suggest behavior mod,. Theorectially that may be true but in reality we do it all the time.
We have little aceptence of recovering alcoholics continuing to use other drugs anbd with good reason.
However, we openly accept our members smoking without so much as a word.
Tobacco has an unreasonable, special protection and double standard in our society and in AA and that double standard is deadly.
Don't get me wrong , I;m not talking about intolerance. Yet why do we react so differently to an AA who states he's still smoking pot vs. one who's still smoking tobacco??
I mean no harm here, this is just part of who I am, I see the double stanards, the ironies and the stories behind the story and then like to get it out in the open.
Joel
Yet, I wanted to answer Lee's last comment, as I feel these discussions are good.
Simple soultion, start a new thread.
Lee you mentioned that we do not exist to even suggest behavior mod,. Theorectially that may be true but in reality we do it all the time.
We have little aceptence of recovering alcoholics continuing to use other drugs anbd with good reason.
However, we openly accept our members smoking without so much as a word.
Tobacco has an unreasonable, special protection and double standard in our society and in AA and that double standard is deadly.
Don't get me wrong , I;m not talking about intolerance. Yet why do we react so differently to an AA who states he's still smoking pot vs. one who's still smoking tobacco??
I mean no harm here, this is just part of who I am, I see the double stanards, the ironies and the stories behind the story and then like to get it out in the open.
Joel
Some people can smoke without significant harm -- some cannot.
Some people can _______ without significant harm -- some cannot.
A.A. is not about trying to change anyone's behaviour, Joel, and we need to keep that just that way. Let the moralizers do the moralizing, the philosophers the philosophising, the lecturers the lecturing ... and let us simply continue trying to help others like ourselves who cannot be helped by those other folks.
"You will be most successful with alcoholics if you do not exhibit any passion for crusade or reform [of any kind whatsoever]. Never talk down to an alcoholic from any [kind of] moral or spiritual hilltop; simply lay out the kit of spiritual tools for his inspection. Show him how they worked with you. Offer him friendship and fellowship. Tell him that if he wants to get well you will do anything to help." (page 95)
And after we have done that well enough, we might simply add ...
"We are convinced that a spiritual mode of living is a most powerful health restorative ...
"But this does not mean that we disregard human health measures." (page 133)
Personally, I am alive today not just because I am sober, but because some later pains and sufferings in life (and having nothing whatsoever to do with drinking) finally made me willing to make a few changes. For example, and after an emergency-room team got me relatively stable during a heart attack in '99, a compassionate nurse told me I needed to quite smoking ... and I responded by telling her I already had.
"Really?"
"Yes, really."
"When?"
"Oh, about 20 minutes ago!"
She did not think that was very funny, of course, but nobody's earlier warning or lecture had ever made even the slightest difference ... and the next day another nurse told me I would eventually smoke again. It would be pointless for me to try to explain how she knew that or why I again do, and likely nobody would be very impressed by my going from 3 packs a day down to only one after being stark-raving smoke-free for a year-and-a-half. But for myself, I will never forget my first Big Book meeting that set me free from thinking I had to do something to please the reformers that could never do anything for me.
The arguement seems to be that if it gets you visably high it's a bad drug and if it doesn't it's a good drug. That seems to be a gross over simplification . Tobacco addicts, contols, kills and has a strong relationship with the taking of other drugs just like alcohol does.
And blues tobacco literally changes our brain chemistry by changing the actual number of acetecholamine ( spelling) receptors in our brain. It's not like advil!
Bottom line, by condoning smoking we are passively participating in the death of our members.
I like this message board and I don't wish to cause any hard feelings. I just like to see people thinking about tobacco for what it is. A killer drug addiction!
I staunchly defend your right to have any particular belief or personal perception of your own choosing, Joel, but I am not aware of a single statement anywhere reporting A.A. as anti- anything. And, I only post that here to try to be sure no newcomer confuses any personal opinion with A.A. policy:
Tradition Ten: "Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues ...
"Concerning such matters [like being discussed here, A.A. groups] can express no views whatever."
How do you classify drug use as "an outside issue"?
Our very society is addicted to tobacco. That's why the surgeon general's warning was 450 years late.
Let's start with some basic assumptions. Do you see AA as a temperance movement whose primary purpose is to reform society?
... and I have never heard one speak against it.
Please carefully consider Nemo's question, Joel:
>> Do you see AA as a temperance movement whose primary purpose is to reform society?
It doesn't stop me getting through to my higher power and My life is fantastic, If donttread u believe despite all eviedence to the contrary that smoking constitutes as hard drug use then I wish you good luck in your new movement and may your god go with you.
I merely mentioned society because as many of us grew up society shaped our perceptions of what was a drug and what wasn't. Tobacco held such special status in our society that despite the King of England knowing about lung disease in 1604, despite Ben Rush linking tobacco use and alcoholism around 1800 , despite Dr. Adler making a lung cancer link in 1912, etc. the government didn't tell the people of the time.
Those influences effect our perceptions .
I merely think that AA should have a consistent outlook on drug use. Why is that such a difficult issue for people?
And Blues, how can being an active drug addict NOT affect our recovery.? I mean obviously we can recover while smoking , but is it full recovery?? And if your smoking your STILL "killing yourself daily"
I'm merely advocating consistency regarding drugs other than alcohol.
I won't take anyone's inventory, but do any of you feel you might be rationalizing. If so wouldn't that be a relapse indictator brought about by tobacco use past or present?? I can't answer that , it's just a question.
Evidence , in fact, suggest that dealing with tobacco early on improves recovery outcomes.
There are no such things as too many meetings or overdose on 12 steps.
I've been smoke free since March of '08 thanks to AA with lots of exsmokers and the 12 steps. You'll pry that coffee out of my cold clutching fingers.
There's no quantum leap at all here. As I have always understood AA, we have no quarrel with drinking as an institution and no agenda to bring back Prohibition. So if we're not anti-alcohol or on a crusade to ban the use of it, why should we be anti-tobacco anything else?
It's not the difference or similarity between one drug and another that's on the table here, but the distinction between self and others. Personally, I can't be involved in my own recovery and minding other people's business at the same time. That would require a quantum leap that I'm constutionally incapable of making.
I HAD to quit drinking because I was on the WRONG PATH!! I was getting into trouble and my thinking was not clear at all. I was taking risks ALL THE TIME! Smoking does not do the same thing to me.
I am currently on medication to help me stop smoking and it happens to be an anti depressant, a mind altering drug prescribed by a Doctor. What would one say about that? Honestly, I don't care. Because I am a grateful alcoholic today and I LOVE MY MEETINGS and the people in them.
If you had a friend or home group member who shared that they were struggling with a desire to smoke pot and another who was struggling with cravings to smoke tobacco would your advise be the same? If not, why?
Overall , you guys have given me food for thought and hopefully vise versa.
Please don't lose sight of what's killing our members!